TEMOTU Province field enumerators have successfully completed their training held in Honiara last week for the upcoming Village Resource Survey 2017-2018 (VRS).

Held at the National Statistics Office (NSO) conference room, the special training was for the four Temotu enumerators who are unable to join their other province colleagues in a similar training held fortnight ago due to flight issues.

Amongst the Temotu team was one of the enumerator from Isabel province who was also late to attend the first training.

The training commenced on 30th October and ended on Friday 3rd November.

The training (s) was part of the VRS 2017/18 phase one implementation to prepare enumerators for the nationwide survey that will inaugurate next week as part parcel of the 2019 national census count preparation headed by the National Statistics Office (NSO).

These enumerators were selected base on their outstanding performance in the recent National Agriculture Survey 2017 (NAS 2017) project facilitated by NSO and again trained to participate in the upcoming VRS 2017-2018.

Speaking at a small but significant closing ceremony on Friday 3rd November, Government Statistician Douglas Kimi encouraged the enumerators to do their best in the survey.

“The onus is now on you thus do your best in the survey to collect the needed data.

“You are the best and NSO is counting on you to do the work we have entrusted you to do for the country leading up to the 2019 population Census.

“You are the bigger part of the NSO process in collecting statistics. Your work is very important to us (NSO),” he added.

He assured the enumerators that NSO will work closely with them as they (NSO) prepare towards the national census in 2019.

He told the Temotu enumerators to visit all the villages in Temotu province during the survey and recorded its particulars.

Meanwhile, Mr Kimi said the report of the VRS 2017/18 will be treated as a benchmark information for the Solomon Islands for the next ten years before the next update.

He said that due to the fact that the gazetted (legal) Village names is with the Ministry of Lands and Housing – The original list will be extracted from the Lands department to actually update the village list.

“NSO management is working on the phase budget implementation approach in executing 2017 NSO development projects including the National Statistics Development Strategy 2015/16-2035 (NSDS), Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) (ongoing), Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) extended activities (ongoing), National Agriculture Survey (ongoing), Village Resource Survey (ongoing) and Labour Force survey (new/ongoing).”

He said by this approach, NSO will be collecting information on the household listing and GPS recording on Households – pre-census count during the progress of the VRS.

“Generally the information to be collected in the VRS will also help to ensure the kind of resources that exist in the village. It is a good check to align policy implementation for the kind of development project the villages have received from the government and those who still experience the challenge.

“The information will be more powerful to confirm the development that are happening in the villages and communities. NSO also include questionnaires on climate change and the level of challenge this Climate Change have had on villages and communities,” Mr Kimi said.